


Before I Met You

by Glare



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-05 23:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5394791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glare/pseuds/Glare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harold never much believed in the concept of soulmates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before I Met You

**Author's Note:**

> "Long before I met you, I had waited for you. I had always waited for you." -Tasos Livaditis

Harold never much believed in the concept of soulmates. When he was younger, maybe, and the idea was still fresh and shiny and new; when his classmates would huddle together in small groups and talk of the names inked into their skin like tattoos, sharing dreams of beautiful maidens and knights in white armor. Little fingers trace the marks with childish wonder, marveling at the idea that somewhere out there is a person who is to be the perfect complement to you. Your One and Only. Sometimes Harold would listen to the stories spun by the children he could almost call friends and trace the _John Reese_ branded over his heart through the fabric of his shirt, trying to imagine the boy that could be the other half of his soul.

Most of them found their match by the time they reached high school—such is the way of small, country towns. But the novelty had long since worn off for Harold.

“Better to have loved and lost than never loved at all,” the counselors told him.

The counselors had never been called away in the night to retrieve their slowly deteriorating fathers from wherever they have wandered to in their confusion, searching for a soul that no one longer walks with them. The suffering love brings with it was never mentioned in the stories Harold heard as a child. He doesn’t think he wants that kind of love.

\--

He escapes that small town to MIT with a new name, Harold Wren, and a chance to live beyond the social pressures of finding that _someone_. He’s among his own people, who put science before myth and treat the names on their skin like irrelevant data. Soulmates are inconsequential in the race to the future.

At MIT he meets Nathan, who’s handsome and funny and bold; who can understand the things Harold says and return them in kind; whose skin is free from the makings of destiny. He has a fascination with Harold’s soulmark, though. He’ll trace it, sometimes, when they’re tangled in the sheets and still surfing the pleasant afterglow. Head resting on Harold’s shoulder, Nathan drags his fingers gently over _John Reese_ and asks, “Don’t you ever wonder?”

“No,” Harold tells him.

Harold doesn’t tell him that one night, before they became this, he had wondered. Harold doesn’t explain how the curiosity had eaten away at him until he’d found himself seated in front of the computer, scouring the internet for anything and everything pertaining to _John Reese_. Harold certainly doesn’t say that there had been noting to find: no certificates of birth or death or anything in between. Just a gaping hole where his soulmate should be. At the time, it had almost seemed fitting. He’d denied the connection for so long, what right had he to want it now?

\--

After graduation, IFT grows and they grow apart. Nathan meets Olivia and marries, then divorces. The Machine develops between them like a surrogate child. Harold meets Grace.

Grace is soft and patient and kind. An artist, dedicated to her work just as Harold is to his own. There’s a name on the small of her back that is not Harold’s, but the name on his skin is not hers either, so neither of them mind. They think they’ve found love, true love, free of the meddling of fate. They see exhibits and operas and take walks in the park, eating vanilla ice cream cones even in the bitter winter months.

It is the best four years of Harold’s life.

Then the Machine is complete, the ferry is bombed, Nathan is dead, and he flees from the sanctuary of Grace. Harold thinks back to his father’s suffering, and wonders if he might have been wrong about soulmates being the worst kind of love to endure. This love hurts, too.

\--

When they meet for the first time, their true names are forgotten—lost long ago to the sands of time.

“You can call me Mr. Finch,” Harold says, and watches one of _John Reese’s_ hands drift to his abdomen, where his skin bears the name that has mocked him since he was old enough to understand its implications. Harold can relate only too well with the confusion the young John must have faced when his soulmate, by the government’s records, did not exist.

There is a relief in those sharp blue eyes that Harold can feel echoed in his own chest, a sense of rightness and belonging that chases away all thoughts of the speech Harold has practiced in the mirror a dozen times over since discovering the existence of his _John Reese_.

Harold never much believed in the concept of soulmates, but as John Reese approaches with slow, wary steps, he can’t help but feel there may be something to it after all. John is skinny and skittish and dirty now, but these things Harold can fix with time. Under the horrors of his past, John Reese is brave and loyal and lethal; he’s strong enough to stand by Harold’s side and share the weight of the world on his shoulders.

The other half to Harold’s soul.


End file.
